Late Bucket but fill 'er up with your nature news. I have a few old washed up trees from earlier in June to offer for your pleasure today, and a couple of sparkling moments.
The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
June 2015
Olympic Peninsula, PNW
Rialto Beach in winter has some of the most tempestuous waves along the Washington coast, swells driven a thousand miles by storms crashing straight onto this steep beach. Such energetic surf brings giant driftwood to settle at the top of the slope, which stays there through the following summer's more gentle waves. Some driftwood is SO big, and driven SO hard into the sand, it stays for many years in the same position, eroding gradually.
I walk this beach every year, sometimes more than once. I've gotten to know certain driftwood. Others are new, or newly arranged old ones.
Some are so big they block your view. This one below is the same as the log above, but from the other direction. If I didn't know what was behind it, my sprint around it between waves could reveal an unpleasant surprise...more big driftwood......start running...!
The tight fit of these driftlogs is new this year, somehow wedged together during the last big wave of winter.
More driftwood below the fold.
(All photos by me. In Lightbox...click to enlarge)
I like how the gravely sand has heaped up on the seaward side of this one.
Beautiful grain patterns emerge after wetting and drying and weathering.
Buried, and a barrier against surf if you happen to get stuck during a high tide.
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Bonus driftwood photo from First Beach, at sunset. I learned that it is possible to see the Green Flash even when the sun is going down behind silhouetted driftwood. Cool! I'd always thought you had to have a flat sea horizon. The critical factor, besides clean clear air, is a long line of sight to the horizon - standing up on driftwood watching the sunset I was seeing right over the jetty to the sea horizon beyond, even if it was just a bit of it. This photo was JUST before the actual Green Flash that night. GFs are rare. I did not see it again on this trip, and I've only seen it once before in my whole life.
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One more, a foggy morning. I'd gone out to the beach even in pea soup for a last taste of salty air before setting off on the long drive back home. This behemoth driftwood settled there in 2010, and every year since then I've been relieved to see it hasn't washed away over the previous winter. While I gazed at it I saw someone else had ventured out onto the foggy morning beach, like me, getting a last breath of sea air before heading inland. It was my 90-year-old mother. The occasion for this trip was a family gathering celebrating her birthday, at one of her favorite places in the world.
We walked a ways down the beach in the fog dodging driftwood and waves. Beachwalks never get old.
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For more sciency stuff on where driftwood comes from, and some speculation about this last particular giant, see this Daily Bucket.
All nature observations welcome in the comments. Time for your report on what's happening where you live or have visited in these first days of summer.
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